


Gap

by RABel



Series: Happy Huxlidays [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Major Character Injury, Nightmares, Trains, ben's just tired, everything is about trains with me, fluff-ish at the end, ghost story, per-killed major character, reliving or death, sevreal times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 06:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16510682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RABel/pseuds/RABel
Summary: Ben misses his train one night and has to take a later one deeper in the subway, what he finds there changes his life forever.





	Gap

**Author's Note:**

> I had no time to correct this so bare with me on that.  
> if you want to contact me in any way you can find me here, [FrackenArt](http://frackenart.tumblr.com/)  
> thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy!!

Ben was running late for his subway, dashing past the other lonely souls that were still out this late to try and get to the next platform that could get him at least a bit closer to home. His shoes clicked as he jogged across the tile and concrete floors of the underground, the smell of mildew and musk filling his lungs as he got further from the common trains and away from the more populated areas. 

 

Soon Ben was the only one besides the janitor who looked about ready to drop dead. The fluorescent light over head flickered like in one of the horror movies Ben had made the mistake of watching the night before. Ben ignored it, instead taking out his phone and plugging in his headphones and started up his music before plopping himself down on a bench and waiting. His bag dropped to the floor in front of him as he moved to get one of his book from it and start up a bit of his homework while he waited.

 

He was halfway through the calculus problems he was assigned with he heard the telltale  _ woosh _ and  _ cla-clunks  _ of the train pulling in. Ben quickly stuffed all his books back into his bag and pulled it over his shoulder before standing when his eye caught something. He looked over to see a well dressed ginger man standing a few feet away from him, he must have come down when Ben wasn’t paying attention. There was something ethereal about him, how perfect he looked, every hair in place, not a wrinkle in his clothes, back ramrod straight.

 

As Ben stepped forward closer to the edge of the platform, the man finally turned to him. Pale green eyes slipping into something gray and cheeks slightly sunken as if he would go gaunt if he missed his next meal. Ben was stuck by something, and odd crawling feeling up his back like something wasn’t all right at the moment. It was as if something was warning him of some unseen danger that was approaching, but he just couldn’t understand what.

 

“ _ Mind the gap _ .” the man said, voice echo-ish like he was standing in some empty tunnel.

 

Before Ben could even complete the statement and say anything back, the man turned his head back slightly more like he was looking at something before his body was shoved violently forward and was launched into the front of the oncoming subway that flew past with such force it rattled Kylo awake. He quickly looked around himself taking in where he was with confusion.

 

He already sat in a subway, the rocking of the car waking him from a sleep he didn’t remember falling into. Ben took a deep breath and steadied his beating heart, he must really be tired to black out like that. He’s lost seconds before, said a few things he hasn’t remembered but nothing to this point. He blinked slowly and wiped his face before turning forward and everything seemed to stop.

 

There, on the other side of the car, sitting with his legs crossed at the ankles, hands clasped lightly together in his lap and eyes downcast to the floor, was the ginger man from earlier. Skin pale as ever and looking on the edge of more dead-like, he slowly looked up to Ben eyes tired and a purple and blue bruise slowly starting to spread over his right side of his face and anywhere visible on his body before red overtook everything. The lights in the car flickered and the man was gone without a trace.

 

Ben stared at where he had been for the rest of the ride, and walked zombie-like back to his apartment and into his been as he tried to process all that had happened to him.

 

<<>>

 

He couldn’t get the man’s face out of his head. He kept thinking back to his voice, and its ghost-like eternalness. His mind was stuck on the bruises that blossomed across his body before he was engulfed in red. He’s thoughts always falling back to the helpless look on his face before he seemed to be shoved in front of the ghost of a train. Ben couldn't get his mind off of this man that seemed to haunt his dreams. A man that could quite possibly be just a figment of an overactive imagination.

 

He was stuck on a ghost.

 

Ben shook himself out of his little day-dream and turned back to his class, there was no point in getting hung up on something that could possibly not even be real. He had more important things to do, like listen to Professor Snoke’s lesson on something in math he had no chance of understanding and he wasn’t about to go talk to the creepy old Professor after what happened last time. All he could do now was sit and wait for the class to end, sit and … think.

 

What if it all was real.

 

_ No _ , he thought to himself,  _ there’s no point in dwelling on ghost-stories, you can’t do anything for him anyway _ . And he stopped himself there, assured everything was settled in himself. The rest of the day flew by in dull color and boring speeches in things he didn’t truly care about. At the end of his class he found himself back in the subway again. His normal routine now so ingrained in his head, his feet worked on auto-pilot.

 

Ben walked his usual path with his face to his phone until his got to his platform only to look up and see the place deserted of everyone. He quickly scanned around himself to see he was at the platform from the night before, as if something had pulled him there instead on his normal track. Ben cursed and checked his phone clock, if he ran, he could probably make it back there in time to catch the train-

 

The  _ click clack _ of dress shoes pulled his mind back to the present, stopping him in his tracks. He turned to see the man from the night before walked towards him, the slightest look of fear painted on his face. He wore what he had on the night before and still had the utter perfection to himself. Ben couldn’t help but watch him get to the spot he had before and just stand there, waiting. Waiting for a train he’d never get on. Waiting for his own death, or a replay of it. 

 

Ben moved to stand next to him, not hiding that he was looking at him at all. His mind trying to wrap itself around how this man was here if Ben had seen him, broad as daylight, be thrown into the front of an oncoming subway. The man turned to him like he had the night before. Face ghostly and gaunt as it was previous.

 

“ _ Mind the gap _ .” he said, before turning.

 

Ben heard the train coming again, his heart racing now. The man in front of him was about to die, as he did the other night, and the night before, and possibly a hundred or so more. Something inside him screamed not to let it happen again. Before he knew what was happening, Ben reached out for the man’s arm as he was pushed and-

 

<<>>

 

_ Hux packed up his briefcase as clicked passed two hours after the end of his shift. He closed his laptop and packed it away before closing and locking it before getting up from his desk. He went to the hall moving to get on the elevator when a dark figure appeared on the other side. Without stopping, Hux walked past the man and straight to the stairs where he started making his way down to street level two steps at a time. _

 

_ An echo of steps followed his down to the lobby where Hux jogged to catch up with the rest of the crowd that was leaving. Slipping between a few people as they made their way out in the street before splitting off and rushing down an alley he knew was a shortcut to the subway. Hoping that whoever it was after him was stuck in the crowd long enough to lose him there. _

 

_ He only breathed a sigh of relief when he made it into the bustling subway, hurrying down the many steps he needed to take in order to get down to his station. The feeling of being followed slowly falling from his shoulders and he took the last flight and walked into the empty subway station. The only sound in the room coming for his shoes clicking on his the tile and the buzzing of the overhead fluorescent lights. He moved to stand, waiting for the subway to come  _

 

_ Hux’s head skipped a beat as an extra echo of steps came down the stairs. _

 

_ He couldn’t move, he only stood there stock-still, heart racing like if he stood still enough whoever was behind him wouldn’t be able to see him. The steps stopped behind and the quiet of everything is deafening. Hux thought the whole world might have stopped till the sound of the subway approaching the station rumbled from the dept of the tunnel. _

 

_ “Mind the gap.” the man said from behind him, shocking Hux into turning towards him just as the man pushed him from the platform. He turned to look down the tunnel for his eyes to be filled with blinding light and the reflection of his own frighten image.  _

 

_ A loud horn filled his ears before the- _

 

Ben shocked awake in his bed, a cold sweat dripping down his brow as he felt around his bed to make sure what he was seeing was real. When his heart had finally calmed, he flopped back on to his bed heavily and wiped his hands down his face. Why was this being shown to him? What could he do about all this? What could he do for this man that was haunting him? Hux, that what he had heard the man think of himself as.

 

Who the hell was Hux?

 

<<>>

 

Ben went through the day in a fog again. Everything rushing around him in a blur like he was in some bad 90s music video. His shift at work in the morning was spent mopping the same spot on the floor for nearly 2 hours. His classes were like getting taught by one of the teachers from Charlie Brown. The walk down to the train station never registered in his mind. Now, he stood at the side of the platform with a coffee in his hand that he didn’t remember buying, waiting.

 

He flinched when he heard the clipped steps of the man he’d watch die three or so times now coming down towards him once again. Ben swallowed around the lump in his throat and tried to calm his heart by taking in a deep breath. Hux came to a stop at his side and kept his eyes forward.

 

Before Hux could say his signature line, Ben turned to him, “Mind the gap.”

 

Hux blinked at him for a second that seemed to stretch into eternity, his face painted with pure surprise and confusion that made him seem so alive. He looked like he wanted to say something but before he could, he turned to look over his shoulder. Ben reached out from him then, pushing him out of the way. Everything went in slow motion like it had the first time, Hux’s eyes widening as he watched Ben get pushed by some invisible force into the front of the oncoming subway. The last thing Ben saw was Hux reaching out for his hand before something slammed into his side and pain exploded up his side and all went black.

 

<<>>

 

“He should be fine, he’s actually quite lucky that the subway was stopping otherwise he might have been killed.”

 

“I know.”

 

“The damage is still extensive but he’ll definitely live, and with you there I’m sure he’ll be fine. Oh! It seems that he’s waking up, I’ll leave you two alone.”

 

Steps exited the room as another pair waked up to the side of his back. Ben carefully opened his eyes, wary of blinding Florence one's above him. He looked around his surrounding first, taking in the rather neat hospital room colored in many whites and tans before looking down at himself and seeing the gown he wore had little yellow ducks all over it. Past the gown, his eyes caught on his arm which had been wrapped completely in a cast that only had his fingers sticking out.

 

“The doctor said not to move it too much.”

 

Ben swung around to look to where the voice had come from which he regretted almost immediately as hot pain shot down his neck and into his hurt side. A soothing hand rubbed down his back, the cold about it even calming him slightly. When the pain subsided and he opened his eyes again he was met with the sharp green eyes that he remembered so well.

 

“Hux?”

 

He swallowed and looked at Ben like he was a startled horse. “Yes, I hope you don’t mind me being here, I just- you got me- you-.” he let out a heavy sight dropping his head to his lap where he played with his thumbs before looking back up to Ben, “You saved me so … I wanted to return the favor.”

 

Ben looked at him for a moment. Hux was here, Ben had saved him from his loops of deaths and now he was here. He was sitting only a foot or so from Ben, the like making him look ever more washed out than before … more maybe that was being dead, but it didn’t matter, he was here! Wait, how was he here?

 

“I thought you were dead?”

 

“Oh, I am, and I had been stuck in the dingy subway for over 40 years now … but you finally stopped the loop by taking my place instead.” Hux had a shine of awe in his eyes that made Ben’s chest hurt.

 

“So why haven’t you gone yet?” 

 

Hux’s face dropped after that, “I can if you want me to, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” 

 

He moved to get up when Ben reached for his arm and pulled him back … somehow, “Okay, I’ll ask you how that worked later but for now: hold up a second, I didn’t mean it like that, I meant why are you still here, I thought after a ghost unfinished business what taken care of they … left.”

 

“Oh, well … that wasn’t my unfinished business, that’s long been destroyed so I’m essentially stuck here forever … with nowhere to go … and nothing to do … stuck.”

 

There was a pause that hanged heavy in the air before Ben spoke up, “You want to hang around me for the rest of eternity?”

 

Hux looked at him shocked for a while before a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. 

 

“Sure.” 


End file.
